October is flesh​this body is a pyre—haveyou seen the colour of necks comingout of a flowerpot or haveyou seen the feelingsof headstones brokenby rain?--after the air,twelve birdscame: allcaves candrinkmonoxides & tworivers notmeant for each other; adream livesacrossa telephonetime, where we goto dressas moons. the realmind cannotenter a suitcase nor wearrose—every fleshis open totelevision

Tomorrow

till the river takes your face, stranger; till each of the black lines enter the body of a mollusk, like children say a sandcastle needs no dress but only a moon to live in, to last long like children laughing away their kites; till there is a skin too dark for a map to stay — who will tell the people there is a garden here that doesn’t forget its visitors, till a thread ties silence on to the red apple full of Anne’s metal — till tomorrow, when we shall get out of our flowerpots and go back to the peephole, back to tomorrow: only a mirror calls out the country in your nightgown, to the direction of a sheet of carbon till there is a skin to visit the horizon

​Going

it was the last she said: this pillow--the wire cloth will nothold lightning norprayer—thereis a placeoutside the door that is neither a ghost nor a backpack

DAVID ISHAYA OSU was born in 1991 in Nigeria. He is a board member of the Babishai Niwe Poetry Foundation based in Uganda. His poetry appears in publications including: Chiron Review, CutBank, Vinyl, Transition, Maintenant 10: A Journal of Contemporary Dad Writing & Art. David is a fellow of the Ebedi International Writers Residency, and is selected for the 2016 USA Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. He is currently assistant poetry editor for Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel, and he is at work on a debut poetry book.